5-24-06
Before I came to Rome I spoke with my Uncle Cessna who has been here several times. When I told him that we would be studying the rhetoric of architecture he was very interested and asked if we would be comparing the more ancient buildings to the square buildings erected by Mussolini. So one of the things that I noticed in watching The Bicycle Thief was the tall square buildings shown throughout the film. They are institutionalized, they are there for a reason, they serve a purpose, they function. I thought that this was particularly interesting in the scene where Ricci first hears about his new job. In the crowd of people gathered at the bottom of the steps there are a number of different professions represented, and they each complain that they are capable of doing the job if Ricci isn’t, and the foreman keeps reminding them that it is not a job for them, “You are a bricklayer” and lines like that remind the audience that each individual has his role to play, and they are not to attempt to usurp the roles of others. This idea is also interesting when we see Ricci try to steal a bicycle at the end of the film. He fails where an earlier character succeeded, and I wonder if it is the same idea, that Ricci’s role is not that of bicycle thief so he should not attempt to fill this role in society because it is not in his category of work.
When Ricci tells his wife about his troubles and they begin to argue on their walk home, it is interesting that at the most heated point of their argument there is a scene in the background of a group of children acting out a play wedding. Showing the contrast of young love which is ever new and innocent without a need for constant reconciliation with a more mature relationship which has moments of tribulation.
When we first enter Ricci’s apartment there is somber music along with the crying children as we move through the apartment and end with Ricci in the bedroom and I noticed that the cord for the light is wrapped into a loop, resembling a noose, and is in the foreground with Ricci in the background. Reinforcing the foreshadowing of the title.
When Ricci and his wife go to sell their sheets we see behind the pawnbroker a room full of sheets, and then when Ricci goes to reclaim his bicycle we see the clerk with the sheets cross in front of the bicycle to shelves, tall as a man and at least 5 shelves high, full of other sets of sheets. According to Peter Bondanella in his book Italian Cinema from Neorealism to the Present this shows that “obviously the hopes of countless others have already been dashed before.” (page 60)
After redeeming his bicycle, a Fides, which Peter Bondanella notes translates as Faith, Ricci carries it with him every where he goes, even into the offices of his employer to show his papers. The bicycle is his sign of security, his hope for a better future, yet he often leaves it unattended so that the foreshadowing of the title builds tension up to the moment when the bicycle is stolen.
When Ricci rides his bicycle he is always the fastest and the first. He arrives at the bus stop before the bus, he easily passes all of the other cars on the road.
When the bicycle is stolen Ricci is pasting up a poster of Rita Hayworth, I wonder if this is an indirect stab at the way the American Film industry stole the bread from a number Italian film production companies with their flood of goods.
Reinforcing the image of the countless sheets, when Ricci goes in to report his stolen bicycle to the police there are mounds of reports, just like his, littering the officers desk. The theft which is so life-changing for Ricci is just another theft for the police officer who even remarks to another officer that it is “just a bicycle”.
Whereas, with is bicycle, Ricci was ahead of everyone else and outside the lines and crowds, once his bicycle is stolen he is forced back into the mêlée, as seen when he attempts to board the crowded bus and is forced to walk instead because he cannot get in.
When Bruno asks where the bicycle is, he gives the same response to his son that he gave to the foremen when the bicycle was in hock, it is “broken”. Every time the bicycle is out of his possession it is “broken”
When Ricci and his friends go to look for the bicycle, they keep reminding us that it is a Fides (faith) frame, and telling us that the bicycle was probably chopped up. I found this to be a very interesting idea, that Ricci’s faith was split up, but that the frame would remain intact. And while Ricci and his friend are looking in one place, a bespectacled man is looking at Bruno, and I didn’t quite understand what this was supposed to mean.
One of the most interesting pictures, for me, is when Ricci is surrounded by priests during the rainstorm. They are all clean and white, while his hands and face are dirty.
I was really taken with the idea that the film is cyclical, that the story begins and ends with similar shots of Ricci dissolving into a crowd of people. It seems to suggest that life will go on, that this is the cycle of occurrences for everyone. I think that this idea is heightened by De Sica’s use of ordinary people for his actors.
After discussing the film we went on a walk to the Church of the Immaculate, where Miriam Kenyon and Donatello saw the body of the model. It was really interesting to be in a place from the book, it seemed less changed with time than the other sites we had visited. Hilda’s tower didn’t look quite right to me, and the Treve fountain was so full of people that I could not imagine being there with the characters from the novel. But looking at the painting of St. Michael and Satan I could actually imagine climbing inside the world of the Marble Faun. The crypt of the Capuchins was amazing. The inscription in the tomb of the children was even more haunting that Hawthorne made it out to be. Actually looking at the artistic array of bones, and the shells of the dead monks, while reading, “What you now are, we once were. What we are now, you will be” really made me stop to think. I also appreciated that cameras were forbidden so I was not distracted by people standing in front of the crypt with their thumbs in the air and goofy grins on their faces to tell the world that they had been there.
When Ricci tells his wife about his troubles and they begin to argue on their walk home, it is interesting that at the most heated point of their argument there is a scene in the background of a group of children acting out a play wedding. Showing the contrast of young love which is ever new and innocent without a need for constant reconciliation with a more mature relationship which has moments of tribulation.
When we first enter Ricci’s apartment there is somber music along with the crying children as we move through the apartment and end with Ricci in the bedroom and I noticed that the cord for the light is wrapped into a loop, resembling a noose, and is in the foreground with Ricci in the background. Reinforcing the foreshadowing of the title.
When Ricci and his wife go to sell their sheets we see behind the pawnbroker a room full of sheets, and then when Ricci goes to reclaim his bicycle we see the clerk with the sheets cross in front of the bicycle to shelves, tall as a man and at least 5 shelves high, full of other sets of sheets. According to Peter Bondanella in his book Italian Cinema from Neorealism to the Present this shows that “obviously the hopes of countless others have already been dashed before.” (page 60)
After redeeming his bicycle, a Fides, which Peter Bondanella notes translates as Faith, Ricci carries it with him every where he goes, even into the offices of his employer to show his papers. The bicycle is his sign of security, his hope for a better future, yet he often leaves it unattended so that the foreshadowing of the title builds tension up to the moment when the bicycle is stolen.
When Ricci rides his bicycle he is always the fastest and the first. He arrives at the bus stop before the bus, he easily passes all of the other cars on the road.
When the bicycle is stolen Ricci is pasting up a poster of Rita Hayworth, I wonder if this is an indirect stab at the way the American Film industry stole the bread from a number Italian film production companies with their flood of goods.
Reinforcing the image of the countless sheets, when Ricci goes in to report his stolen bicycle to the police there are mounds of reports, just like his, littering the officers desk. The theft which is so life-changing for Ricci is just another theft for the police officer who even remarks to another officer that it is “just a bicycle”.
Whereas, with is bicycle, Ricci was ahead of everyone else and outside the lines and crowds, once his bicycle is stolen he is forced back into the mêlée, as seen when he attempts to board the crowded bus and is forced to walk instead because he cannot get in.
When Bruno asks where the bicycle is, he gives the same response to his son that he gave to the foremen when the bicycle was in hock, it is “broken”. Every time the bicycle is out of his possession it is “broken”
When Ricci and his friends go to look for the bicycle, they keep reminding us that it is a Fides (faith) frame, and telling us that the bicycle was probably chopped up. I found this to be a very interesting idea, that Ricci’s faith was split up, but that the frame would remain intact. And while Ricci and his friend are looking in one place, a bespectacled man is looking at Bruno, and I didn’t quite understand what this was supposed to mean.
One of the most interesting pictures, for me, is when Ricci is surrounded by priests during the rainstorm. They are all clean and white, while his hands and face are dirty.
I was really taken with the idea that the film is cyclical, that the story begins and ends with similar shots of Ricci dissolving into a crowd of people. It seems to suggest that life will go on, that this is the cycle of occurrences for everyone. I think that this idea is heightened by De Sica’s use of ordinary people for his actors.
After discussing the film we went on a walk to the Church of the Immaculate, where Miriam Kenyon and Donatello saw the body of the model. It was really interesting to be in a place from the book, it seemed less changed with time than the other sites we had visited. Hilda’s tower didn’t look quite right to me, and the Treve fountain was so full of people that I could not imagine being there with the characters from the novel. But looking at the painting of St. Michael and Satan I could actually imagine climbing inside the world of the Marble Faun. The crypt of the Capuchins was amazing. The inscription in the tomb of the children was even more haunting that Hawthorne made it out to be. Actually looking at the artistic array of bones, and the shells of the dead monks, while reading, “What you now are, we once were. What we are now, you will be” really made me stop to think. I also appreciated that cameras were forbidden so I was not distracted by people standing in front of the crypt with their thumbs in the air and goofy grins on their faces to tell the world that they had been there.
posted by Harvy at 4:49 AM
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